Gardening with Nature's Crossroads

Guest post by Nathan Harman of the Bloomington Permaculture Guild.

Garden beds come in all shapes and forms. There’s no right or wrong. Your space, crops, tools and techniques all influence what sort of bed will work in your situation. A bed might be permanent or a single year’s area within the greater garden. It may be raised, sunk, tilled, mulched, or even portable. It’s bigger than a row, smaller than a garden. It should be a convenient size for what you do.  (Garden bed photo at right courtesy of Kenny Point through a flickr creative commons license.)

First: your site. If it’s on much of a slope, lay your beds out on contour and provide water-sinking swales so they don’t erode away in the rain. You can use a bubble-level, an a-frame level or an approximation to figure your bed contours. Usually, laying beds east-west gives the most even sun throughout the season and day, but that will depend on your particular shade. If your garden is small, short raised beds may make sense. If it’s large, raised beds may be impractical, long rows and cultivation making more sense. Overly wet sites benefit from the increased drainage of raised beds, and heavy mulches help drier soils.

Raised bed photo courtesy of Jennifer Worthen

Next: soil texture and fertility. In dealing with hard, infertile soils you may choose to do a fair amount of soil disturbance and mixing to loosen, add organic matter and minerals. This might be through the use of shovels and forks, a roto-tiller or a series of tractor implements. Disturbance of this kind can be appropriate but should be used sparingly, both for labor’s sake and because turning the soil releases years of pent-up weed seeds while also damaging soil organisms and layers. One could instead put better topsoil, preferably with compost and manures, directly onto poor soils. While potentially expensive, this allows you to custom build the soil for your first beds while you start the slower work of improving the native soil. This technique is often seen in standalone, framed, raised beds in smaller scale gardens.  (Raised bed photo courtesy of Jennifer Worthen through a flickr creative commons license.)

Better yet, create soil in place through lasagna gardening and heavy permanent mulch. This involves the successive placement over the existing soil of layers (lasagna-like) of cardboard/newspaper, manures, leaves, clippings, kitchen waste, native soil, compost, brush, mulch, minerals etc. Use whatever you have or can find cheap and easy that will compost into soil. A mat of cardboard over the existing sod or soil will smother it and provide the initial worm food. Then pile on high-nitrogen ingredients like animal manures, fresh lawn clippings or kitchen scraps. Next, come “browns” like leaves and straw. Repeat. Soil, compost and minerals to taste. Bake at usual composting temperatures. Into this thick rottable mat you can poke small holes to fill with good soil and set transplants for this year’s garden. By next year you should have great soil to work with. You can repeat smaller doses of the same treatment indefinitely, or move to other techniques once your soil is built up.

Another super-easy bed building technique is to simply place good quality HAY bales (not straw) where you’d like beds to be. Hay is green, sweet smelling animal food. Straw is yellow, dried waste from grain harvesting. Soak the hay bales well and let composting begin for a few weeks. After they’ve cooled a bit, poke small holes in them, place soil and transplants. Let grow. The first year, it’s great for tomatoes, peppers, cukes and the like. Next year you will have a loose, rich pile of black dirt in just the right place. Put four or more in a square with a place for a compost pile in the middle, and bingo… nice sized, no dig fertile garden plot.

No matter how you build your beds initially, you’ll find ways to improve them over time. You will need to keep up their fertility and keep down the weeds. Compost and mulch, friends. Mulch that becomes compost in place! BUT… keep in mind that heavy perennial mulches do provide great quarters for slugs, snails and a whole host of over-wintering pestilent buggies and their eggs. Mulch also keeps the soil cooler in the spring and makes direct seeding tricky because of the rough and shady seedbed. Thus, it can be helpful to occasionally remove and replace mulches for awhile in the spring.

Alternatively, in a tilled garden, make use of cover cropping to provide winter protection and growing season fertility. Note that depending on your bed spacing and bed heights it can be a sizeable effort to switch back and forth from tillage to perennial raised bed systems. It can certainly be done but they can also get along very well next to each other in the same garden plan. Okay then… get to bed. Happy gardening.

Nathan Harman is an active member of the Bloomington Permaculture Guild and participant in Transition Bloomington.  He and his wife operate Dome-Grown, a small permaculture farm in Bloomington.

Tags: bed, lasagna, raised, soil

In March, many gardeners’ thoughts turn to peas, that first non-leaf vegetable of the year.  By tradition, many people plant peas around Saint Patrick’s Day, when the soil is hopefully warm & dry enough to encourage sprouting (as opposed to rotting).  Peas can be planted until about mid-April and then again in late August or early September (ideally in a shady spot where they will be somewhat shielded from the thick summer heat).

Peas are pretty low maintenance to grow but they do perform best when given some sort of support.  Peas are relatively light (as opposed to, say, beefsteak tomatoes) so it’s possible to cobble together many sort of makeshift trellises.  However, you could also work on creating a structure that will support other plants later in the season if you make it sturdy enough.  Keep in mind that different plants “climb” in different ways:

1. Tendril climbers like peas and cucumbers have little curlicue tendrils that stick out and wind around whatever they can find.  They do best when the support is close by and easy to grab (they don’t stretch very far).

2. Twining climbers like pole beans and morning glory wind their stems and leaves around the support.   (Different species will grow clockwise or counterclockwise; take a minute to observe in your garden!)  They will grow up pretty much anything.  Tomatoes, melons, gourds, and many kinds of squashes can also be trained to grow like twiners although they need some encouragement (e.g. twist them around the support and/or tie them loosely in place).

3. Scrambling climbers like blackberries and roses use thorns or stiff stems to try and get purchase on the surface they are climbing, although they often benefit from a little assistance (e.g. being loosely tied in place).

4. Self-clinging climbers like many types of ivy actually exude a sort of glue from either their tendrils or roots.

There are many different styles of supports available and they can be very inexpensive to make.  You could also consider investing some time money in building a very sturdy trellis that could be used for different crops throughout the year and from year to year – peas, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, gourds, small melons, and even fairly large squash!  Here are a few common designs.

1. Make a fence with a couple of stakes and either netting, fencing, sticks, or strings to form the cross-pieces.  This kind of structure works well for peas and beans but may not be sturdy enough for tomatoes and squashes.  (See photo above)

2. Make a tipi from stakes or sticks and add strings to create “rungs” for the veggies to climb.  The tipi form adds a little more strength but still might not be enough for heavy plants.  (Photo at left courtesy of woodleywonderworks on flickr.)

3. Build a support structure like the Square Foot Gardener suggests using two 8-foot long metal stakes or sections of pipe hammered a foot into the ground and connected with a crosspiece of metal on the top.  Then either hang down a string every 4″-6″ along the top piece (with another piece of string tied horizontally across the bottom to keep them from swinging around) or attach a section of netting (he likes 6″ squares).  (Photo courtesy of pdbreen on flickr.)

4. Buy or build a wooden trellis and attach it to sturdy stakes in the garden.

5. Salvage an old swingset, ladder, iron grill, or other piece of old furniture that can be used as a means of support, with or without added strings and netting.

Whatever you do, have fun watching your veggies climb, crawl, and scramble their way towards the sun!

Tags: climber, garden, peas, spring, trellis

Guest post by Pete Johnson of Lost Pond Farm

When gardeners talk of stretching the growing season, they’re usually referring to fending off the first frosts and freezes in the fall and buying a little more time for late crops.  But there is much to be gained by investing a little effort in the front side of the calendar.  In late winter when most of us are in on the couch looking at seed catalogs, it’s not too soon to do the things that can mean an extra-early harvest of the first spring plantings.  Here are a few suggestions.  (Homemade Cold Frame photo at right courtesy of Arpent Nourricier – http://www.flickr.com/photos/arpentnourricier/2353123112/)

1.  MAKE USE OF THOSE UNSEASONABLY WARM DAYS THAT ARE SPRINKLED THROUGHOUT A  TYPICAL WINTER. Especially if they fall on weekends, those days are a great chance to get outdoors and enjoy a few hours in the garden.  It’s never too early to clean up the remnants of last year’s garden, turn and screen compost, make some decisions about garden layout for the coming
season and start preparing the areas where you intend to plant first.

Anyone who has read the back of a few seed packets has seen the words “as soon as the ground can be worked.”  Rather than waiting until the soil is completely dried and thawed and you have the time to turn or till the entire garden, prepare a furrow or two as weather permits so you’ll be ready when the earliest planting opportunity comes.  And small seeds such as lettuce and kale don’t really need a furrow and will do fine worked into a band of compost or potting soil spread on the soil surface.  (Lettuce seedling photo courtesy of Daniel Morrison http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielmorrison/491349294/)

2. TAKE A CHANCE AND SOW EARLY.  For cold-hardy crops that you seed directly into the garden, you’re not risking much by sowing ahead of suggested dates, and the potential rewards make it worth trying. Valentine’s Day is the traditional day for the first lettuce to be seeded.  Kale and spinach have a good chance of surviving even earlier sowings (some gardeners plant them in late summer or fall, to over-winter, with protection) and many other cabbage family crops do well with a late February sowing.  A good rule of thumb:  once January is past, it’s not too early to look for day to head out to the garden with some seed packets.  Just hold some seed in reserve in case a severe cold snap forces you to resow.  (One notable exception here is peas.  Pea seeds are prone to sit and rot if planted too early.  If you really want an early pea crop, experiment with transplanting.)

3.   A LITTLE SHELTER MAKES A BIG DIFFERENCE.   Wind and cold take a toll on the garden early in the season, but low-cost or improvised protection can improve survival rates and speed growth, especially with transplants.  Floating row cover is a lightweight fabric intended to be placed directly over garden plants.  It holds in some heat, blocks wind and allows sun and moisture to pass through. FRC is relatively inexpensive and will last several seasons if treated with care.  (Floating Row Cover photo courtesy of Baugher Web Services http://www.flickr.com/photos/aaronbaugher/4548824807/)

Using materials you have on hand, it’s easy to put together an improvised cold frame.  It doesn’t need to look anything like the traditional cold frame with lumber sides and a glass top.  Any arrangement that stops the wind and holds in some warmth overnight will do the job.  Straw bales and bags of leaves can make good sides, and your cold frame top need not be clear, if you can remember to take it off each morning.  Don’t make the sides higher than you need, or you’ll be casting needless shadow inside.  Fill up unplanted space inside with things that will hold heat, such as jugs of water or bricks.  A cold frame can be moved around the garden over the course of the spring, protecting a few square feet of precious early salad greens in one spot, then forcing some asparagus or sorrel in another, and finally serving as shelter for tender transplants as they harden off.

4.  ONE LAST  TIP: TRY SOME NEW VARIETIES In his book “Four Season Harvest,” Eliot Coleman recounts how he began  investigating season extension by asking himself what crops are best suited to cool weather.  The answer lead him to try a number of things he previously had no experience growing.  If you’ve never tried tatsoi, pac choi or komatsuna, the early spring garden is the time and place.  The best thing to come from your own experiments could be a new favorite or two.  (Greens photo courtesy of Veggie Gardening Tips http://www.flickr.com/photos/kennypoint/5026311634.)

Pete Johnson is a longtime organic grower who operates Lost Pond Farm with his wife in southern Indiana.  He is very active with the Local Growers Guild, teaches a session on season extension for the Grow Organic Educator Series, and also works as produce manager for Lost River Market and Deli in Paoli.  Pete is probably best known at the Bloomington Community Farmers’ Market for his make-your-own-bouquet station but he also grows many vegetables, fruits, and herbs.

Tags: cold frame, season extension, spring

Guest post by master gardener and organic grower Michael Simmons.

While end-of-season maintenance of garden tools is important, maintaining them during the gardening season is equally important.  For gardeners who take proper care of their tools while gardening, end-of-season tool care is easy.  Here are a few tips for the everyday care of tools that will lessen post-season tool care tasks:

• Use the proper tool for the job at hand (e.g., using loppers or pruning saws to cut larger limbs saves hand pruners from damage and makes pruning cuts cleaner).
• Keep cutting edges sharp (e.g., a spade with a correctly sharpened edge makes digging easier).
• Clean tools after use to help prevent rust and to avoid the transfer of pathogens or weed seeds to other parts of the garden.
• Put tools away after use to prevent weathering damage (e.g., fiberglass handles deteriorate with prolonged exposure to the elements).
• Replace wooden handles when they crack to prevent injuries (especially important for tools subject to impact, such as mattocks, picks, or axes, the handles of which should never be taped or wired when damaged).

When the gardening season ends, post-season care of tools both prepares them for winter storage and for use as soon as the next gardening season arrives.  A sand box or bucket provides an easy way to clean and oil hand cultivating tools (spades, forks, hoes, etc.) in one step.  Choose a container big enough to accommodate your largest shovel blade.  Fill it with sand and add some vegetable oil.  Thrust tools into the sand several times to remove soil and coat the metal with oil.  Remove any remaining soil with a wire brush and then reinsert in the sand for a final oiling, after which the tools are ready for winter storage.

To refinish wooden tool handles that have become dry and rough, sand lightly and with a cloth (while wearing rubber gloves) apply as much boiled linseed oil as the wood will absorb.  Wipe off the excess and store.  Wash fiberglass handles with soap and water, rinse, and dry.

Sharpen the blades of spades and hoes with a mill file.  Maintain the bevel while sharpening, file away from you, and lift the file after each stroke.  Be sure to wear eye protection when filing.  When the edge is sharp, run the file across the flat side of the blade (opposite the bevel) to remove burrs.

The blades of loppers and secateurs perform best when sharpened on Arkansas oil stones.  To sharpen such pruning tools, remove the blade from the pruner, hold it with the cutting edge toward you and with the bevel at the proper angle to the stone.  Draw blade across the well-oiled stone as if cutting a slice from the stone.  When sharp, draw the flat side of the blade backward across the stone to remove burrs.  For best results, sharpen progressively on soft, hard, and extra-hard stones to achieve a perfect edge.

Michael Simmons is an experienced master gardener and co-teacher of the Grow Organic Educator Series taught through People’s University in Bloomington.  This training program teaches individuals how to garden organically and encourages them to share their knowledge with others, which has led to the creation of the Bloomington Organic Gardening Association.

Tags: file, garden, tools, winter

Guest post by Bobbi Boos of the Local Growers Guild

It’s the buzz word these days- LOCAL, but what does it mean? By definition it simply implies “in a nearby area.” However, when used these days it encompasses a whole philosophy of living, purchasing, eating and community involvement.   Often, we think of buying locally in terms of food, which has additional value such as nutrition and freshness.  However, buying any goods locally is beneficial. Here’s why…

A Focus on Economics

Local Dollars Stay Local: Local producers put significantly more of your money back into the community, by supporting other independent stores, service providers and farms – maybe even your business.  As money circulates in the community the tax base is also increased to support schools, libraries, parks and other community infrastructure. In conventional markets, profits mostly go to processors, middlemen, marketers, and shareholders, most of whom take dollars out of the local economy.  When you are purchasing locally, you improve the local economy many times over.

Viability of the Family Business: On average only 10 cents of every dollar spent on conventional produce returns to the farmer.  The other 90 cents goes to corporations for packaging, marketing, transportation, etc.  However, if you buy directly from the farmer at a market or roadside stand, farmers receive 80 cents of each food dollar and only 20 cents goes to marketing. Even buying from a local grocery keeps more money in the farmers’ hands, usually 55 to 70 cents for each dollar. This is similar for many small producers of other goods.  Purchasing from independent producers ensures their success and ability to support other local businesses.

Increased Quality Jobs:  Nationally, small local businesses are the largest employers.  They tend to pay higher wages, have compassion for personal and family needs and provide a more positive workplace. While chain stores do provide jobs, they tend to be low skill, low-wage positions. When you support local businesses, you help provide quality jobs for your neighbors.  An article in Civic Economics, September 2004, examined the impact of local businesses in Western Michigan.  They found a modest change in consumer behavior – a mere 10 percent shift in market share to independent businesses from chain stores – would result in 1,600 new jobs, $53 million in wages, and a $137 million economic impact to the area.

A Focus on Community

Increased Local Knowledge: Local producers and store owners help develop and preserve information specific to each community.  They help educate children about the source of their food – milk comes from a cow, not just a carton or why Bloomington has so much limestone.  This also appeals to visitors and increases tourism dollars. Buying locally helps strengthen the connection between the producer and consumer and allows them to freely share information with each other.

Strengthened Food Security: It does not take much imagination to see the potential danger of depending on food and other essential products from distant sources.  A massive air, sea and road infrastructure is required to support long distant purchases.  Disruptions in any of these could cause store shelves to empty and communities wondering what has happened. Although this may not seem imminent now, supporting local producers provides an important buffer against this threat.

Stronger Community: Have you ever been to a Little League game or the county fair?  What business is on the t-shirt?  Most likely it is your local hardware store, restaurant, or drug store.  Local businesses are owned by people who are more invested in the community’s future.  In addition to sponsorships, small independent  businesses donate more to non-profits –about 2 ½ times more than medium or large businesses.(NFIB 2003 -small firms give $789 per employee, medium-sized firms $172, and large firms $334).

A Focus on the Environment

Reduced Fossil Fuel Use: Local businesses make more local purchases requiring less transportation.  In 1998, the USDA determined the average distance food traveled by truck to reach Chicago was 1,518 miles.  A parallel study was conducted in Iowa, measuring distance traveled from three local food projects to supply institutional customers (hospital, restaurants, and conference centers).  The average was only 44 miles. Of all the agricultural pollutants, transportation of U.S. Food accounts for approximately 24% of greenhouse gas emissions, 15% of common air pollution and 19% of toxic air pollution. Your choices to buy local directly influence these numbers.

Improved Land Stewardship: Did you know that between 1997 and 2002, Indiana lost 466,000 acres of farmland?   This paved land not only removes farmers, it destroys habitat for our wildlife and scenic beauty for our citizens.  What happened to this land?  Some went to housing, but much was paved for box stores, malls and parking lots. Local businesses usually locate in existing neighborhoods or business districts, requiring comparatively little infrastructure improvements and contributing less to sprawl, congestion, habitat loss and pollution.  Local food businesses also preserve farmland by purchasing from local growers.

Reduced Waste:  Waste is an expense for small business. It also pollutes the environment, especially when disposed of poorly.  Small businesses are less likely to overproduce, overpackage, or use low quality materials or ingredients.  In the long run, this saves money for them and you, while minimizing environmental damage.

A Focus on You

More Choice: Did you know that locally grown produce gives you a wider range of varieties?  Local farmers aren’t limited to the new hybrids bred more to withstand the hardships of shipping.  They choose varieties for flavor and nutrition.  Local businesses select products based on their own interests and the needs of their local customers, not on a national sales plan. Buying locally guarantees a much broader range of product choices.

Better Service: Local businesses often hire people with a better understanding of the products they are selling and take more time to get to know customers.  Do you have an allergy?  Or need a special piece of hardware?  Local businesses are likely to keep special items in stock, spend time to make sure your purchase is the right one and carry higher quality goods.

Greater Nutrition and Flavor: Although quality can vary in many goods, it’s particularly important with foods.  Produce from California typically takes a week or more to travel from field to supermarket shelf.  Studies show lost time leans lost nutrition. Varieties also make a difference.  The Journal of the American College of Nutrition, concluded that heirloom fruit and vegetable varieties averaged higher levels for six of thirteen nutrients tested, including proteins. Locally grown foods can also be picked at peak ripeness and flavor.   Fresh-picked local produce comes to your table with more nutrients intact, fresher and tasting better. When local food businesses preserve and prepare foods from locally grown ingredients, more nutrients sink in, while more flavor bursts out.  You might find kids all of a sudden LIKE eating their veggies.

Buying locally can also be a fun way to rediscover our community as we seek out stores, farms, artisans, crafters, and producers with local flair.  Think local this holiday season!

Bobbi Boos is a farmer, a food activist, and one of the founding members of the Local Growers Guild.  She works for LIFE Farm in the summer and Nature’s Crossroads in the winter, while also raising goats, chickens, and produce on her small homestead.  This holiday season she helped create local food samplers for her new project, Hoosier Fares & Wares.

Tags: business, economy, farm, food, local

Guest post by Jami Scholl of My Edible Eden

January was the time that all those requests for seed catalogues made back in November and December would fill my mailbox. Many great pleasurable evenings were stacked one on top the other as I read each plant description in each and every catalogue. My eyes scanned the pages, filled with photos of possibility of this food and that. I learned that one variety of carrot could have a much shorter growing season than another. Different varieties also had different harvest times; the shapes ranged from almost completely round like a large orange marble to short with a stubby end to long with pointed end. Colours of carrots in the photos ranged from pale yellow to bright orange to purple. (Imagine that, a purple carrot!) Shorter stubby carrots, such as the round Parmex, are not only fashionable, but will grow in heavier soils. The shorter varieties need less time to grow to maturity, too!

Reading carrot entry after carrot entry I also learned that some carrots contain more of certain nutrients than do other carrots. Some store better. Some are better for juicing. This is not something learned while standing in front of the vegetable case at the supermarket looking at the two or three choices of carrots…all orange. The choice became short or long, both packaged in plastic bags. Sometimes there was a lucky third choice – carrots held in a rubber-banded bunch of about 6; limp leafy green tops verified that they were actually plants and not manufactured to look that way.  Really now, who wants a bendable carrot that acts as if it were silicone baking forms? Not me! I’d prefer the crunchy nutrition rich orange, purple, yellow, round, stubby pointy ones that have flavour. So what to do now?

Plan.

Sounds simple. But where to start?

The best way to begin planning a garden is by answering these questions:

1. What do you like to eat? (Prioritize what you eat the most of.)
2. How much growing space do you have?
3. Is this just for fresh eating or preservation?
4. Do you want to harvest through as much of the year as possible?
5. Do you have sun or is the available space shady?
6. What are your temperatures?
7. In what condition is your soil?

I’ll use an example of a small space since this is the best place to begin learning about gardening. And perhaps this space has an area of 10 feet by 5 feet? Do you have enough sun and the right temperatures to grow what you’d like to eat fresh? Some things are not meant to grow in small spaces, such as corn. Care should be taken in selecting favourites for the amount of space the plant requires. I find graph paper helpful in laying out the details of my garden, no matter the size. With list of veggies and measured out space I do a little research – I need to know how much space each plant requires, and the number of days to harvest. If you really want to be detailed, you can make both an overhead view as well as one that illustrates height.

On the back of seed packets, books about vegetable gardening and online resources can inform you about how much space is required between plants and rows. I personally plant in blocks; in this way I utilize the spacing between plants which allows for more to be planted in a smaller area. Jon Jeavons has a wonderful diagram and explanation in his books talking about bio-intensive growing. Bio is in reference to biodynamic growing developed by Rudolf Steiner. Intensive growing was used in Parisian market gardens at the turn of the 19th century, when small farms of only a few acres size fed the city of Paris beautifully and efficiently.

Some things, such as lettuces and spinach, can be planted in early spring as they thrive in cooler weather. After the last spring frost, less hardy plants can be added, such as tomatoes and basil. Spinach and lettuce will bolt (go to seed) as the weather heats up, so these can be pulled out, placed in the compost, and another plant sowed in its place, such as beans. Once the beans are harvested, then carrots, onion, cold hardy lettuce or spinach can be planted. Replacing one type of plant with another through the growing season is known as succession planting.

Knowing harvest times of each plant allows for keeping a garden producing for much of the year. I have developed a Gardener’s Planting Calendar which makes succession planting much easier, as all that would need to be done is assess the size of available growing space, then look on the calendar for what can be planted for that particular month. I am working now to create versions of the 2011 calendar to be used in climate zones 5, 6, and 7. They will be available no later than February for March planting. A unique feature is that the year will begin March 2011, and go to February 2012 in order to coincide when most folks begin the growing season.

Something I have experimented with is planting later in the season and harvesting later… if the ground is kept from freezing then carrots can be harvested in January. Straw has wonderful insulative properties which can prolong root vegetables life in the soil – cold temperatures sweeten the carrot for a taste children enjoy!  Spinach planted in fall, if protected, can grow very, very slowly through the winter, and then will have a head start for early spring harvest.

Starting in a small space is beneficial to the new gardener, as knowledge and experience can be built upon year after year. Planning the garden is also about planning how much you have time to learn each year, each season, when “mistakes” are lessons learned. Garden planning is a process, a journey into a wealth of knowledge which can combine the intellect with hands-on experience that touches elemental emotions ranging from hopefulness to frustration to joy. To begin with a large space without background knowledge may become an overwhelming experience wrought with frustration and disappointment. It is at this point that gardening becomes a chore rather than a joy. And it is during these moments that those silicone plastic carrots begin to look tempting!

November is a good time to explore and prepare. If you will not be building raised beds or already have a garden, then a soil test is useful at this time of year. Think about what you need in regard to tools, and reference books. Perhaps explore garden classes and organized groups during the winter months. Make a list of all the things you eat each week in order to have the information you need to create a seed or plant list. November is a wonderful time to dream of the good food that can be grown in your own garden. Bon Appetit!

Jami Scholl is an edible landscaping and  garden designer from My Edible Eden, LLC.  She offers design consultations, educational programs, permaculture workshops, and a variety of garden planning tools such as her excellent gardener’s calendar and journal.

Tags: garden, planning, winter

Guest post by Art Sherwood, General Manager of Nature’s Crossroads and Avid Organic Gardener (as well as one of NC’s very own Gardening Guys!)

As the leaves fall from the trees and the days get shorter and colder, we may be tempted to abandon our gardens until spring.  And why not?  What could be done in the fall anyway that would lend to our garden’s health and vitality next year?  The answer is conditioning for soil health.

Of the many things that impact a healthy garden, soil is surely tops.  It is an essential ingredient to growing vibrant and healthy plants.  Much more than a plant ‘holder’, it is Earth’s natural place for nutrient development and there are multiple things we can do to help the life of this wonderful dirt.

But first, what is soil?    Soil is a complex substance that is a mixture of several components that is part of the earth’s surface that is capable of supporting plant life.  It includes four components: 45% minerals, 25% water, 25% air and 1-5% organic matter.

There are multiple actions we can take in the fall that will impact the above components.  Our desire is to bring the right minerals, allow water and air in and give organic matter over so that nutrients are processed and become available for plants to use.  Below I outline strategies for success that Gwen, Zosia and I use in our gardens that can be followed in the fall.

1. Clean up. The first thing to do is to clean out the remnants of this year’s garden.  Pull out the plants and put them in your compost pile.  Pull out all the other little things that get in there as well including that hemp rope you used and all those plant markers.

2. Break up the dirt. We are trying to give access for air and water.  Some of you are going to have perfectly fine soil and it will need very little…some of you will have some pretty rough/clay like soil and you will need more.  Breaking up can be done by hand with a fork/hoe or through motorized means such as tilling.  The prior takes more work, but does not have the disadvantages of tilling that include: compacting the sub-soil, destruction of the soil layers and of course the use of gas.  But I am a practical person…if doing it by hand will keep you from gardening (because breaking up dirt can be very hard work) till away.  Use a slow consistent speed and if you can, follow behind with a garden or broad fork to break up sub soil as well.

3. Add organic matter. In the fall, there are three really great options.

• COMPOST. Compost is pure love for your garden.  It has all the good bacteria, fungi and lovely organic matter that make up garden dreams.  If you have been making great compost, this is an excellent time to use some.  Or you can buy it from others and really, this can be a great deal.  We get ours from Dave Parsons of REAL Compost (http://www.indianaholistichealth.net/realcompost.htm) because we think he makes the best around (screened for rocks and fully composted) and besides, we like Dave!  Check around your local area.  Use from .5 inches up to several inches and work it into the top part of your soil.
• GREEN MANURES/COVER CROPS.  Here you are planting plants that will send roots in to help break up the soil, work to make nitrogen available in your soil and provide excellent organic matter in the spring.  We use both mixes and simple winter rye in the fall.  If we use a mix, we typically plant it in later summer so the legumes will grow as well and get established before freezing (we like using a combo of winter rye, field peas, ryegrass, crimson clover and hairy vetch).  Of course, we don’t have much garden space available late summer!  So we use a fall/spring strategy of winter rye grass planted before mid-November and an inoculated early spring mix made up of field peas, oats and hairy vetch.  (You can find and purchase our fall/spring cover crop kit from Nature’s Crossroads!  And inoculant is included free!).  Before you are ready to plant, chop or till the cover crop into the soil.  Note that legumes will give earlier available nitrogen than will grains such as rye.
• MULCH. And what better to mulch with in the fall than leaves!  For areas we are planting fall crops (such as garlic or greens) mulching with leaves makes a lot of sense.  They are free , hold soil in place, protect roots, preserve water and are full of nutrients pulled up from the depths by the tree roots (check out this synopsis of research done by two Rutgers University Professors- http://www.spectrumanalytic.com/support/library/ff/Plant_Nutrients_in_Municipal_Leaves.htm ).  Note though, there is a lot of carbon in the leaves and these should be put on TOP of the soil and not mixed in because it may cause a nutrient deficiency, especially with Nitrogen (why this is has to do with how bacteria eat…perhaps another article!).  We push them to the side to plant in the spring and note that the underside is getting pretty rotten.  Using a mulching mower before spreading will aid in the rotting or just compost the leaves and use later!

4. Fertilize. We will add some all purpose organic fertilizers in the fall following heavy feeding plants or soil that held plants that just did not do so well (weak, spindly, easily sick).  The plants are indicating something to us!  We use a special blend mixed up at our organic farm and will likely be available to people through Nature’s Crossroads in 2011.  This can be applied in the spring, so for now we will move on to…lime.

5. Lime. To lime, or not to lime, that is the question.  Regardless of the answer, fall is a great time to lime so it can ‘age’ enough to do the job. Soil pH gets lots of attention.  Testing it is fairly simple with kits.  But why do we care?  It is because soil that has a pH that is too acid or too alkaline tends to create a situation where nutrients are not available (in the wrong form) and critters that help convert nutrients are not happy.  We recommend that you use a local lime and follow the directions on the package.   This is calcium carbonate and you use it for the ‘ate’ rather than the calcium (so magnesium carbonate would do it too…dolomitic lime).  But soils are often deficient in calcium which is VERY important to healthy plants so it is good to have it in there.   Some folks have used eggshells but we have not tried this out on purpose (we put them in our compost and our ph seems to be OK most of the time…so…who knows?).

There we have it!  Fall is a great time to work with your soil.  It will help set you up for success in the spring.  Our experience has been that it makes a huge difference so give it a try and let us know if you hit pay dirt!

Art Sherwood is the General Manager and co-founder of Nature’s Crossroads as well as being a co-owner of LIFE Certified Organic Farm.  He and his wife Gwen, daughter Zosia, and son Rett are avid organic gardeners.  Other activities include serving on the board of Bloomingfoods, riding his motorcycle, and performing as one of the Gardening Guys.

Tags: cover crops, fall, fertilize, soil

Congratulations to our Creative Kids Art Contest Winners!!  We received over 125 wonderful entries from six schools in Indiana.  It was hard to pick just one winner in each category so we added second place winners as well as four honorable mentions.

For our Rainbow Flower Garden Collection (grades K-3)

• First place – Riley K. of Project School (Bloomington)
• Second place – Jenan G. of Rogers School (Bloomington)
• Honorable Mentions – Elijah K. of Project School (Bloomington), Savanna B. of Clear Creek (Bloomington), and Ryann G. of Rogers School (Bloomington), and Catalina S. of Rogers School (Bloomington)

For our Super Veggie Garden Collection (Grades 4-6)

• First Place – Natalia K. of Project School (Bloomington)
• Second place – Jane L. of Highland Park (Bloomington)
• Honorable Mentions -  Virgil E. of Sugar Creek Consolidated (Terre Haute), Katelyn G. of Highland Park (Bloomington),  Zach S. of Northpoint Homeschool (Indianapolis), and Hayden M. of Clear Creek (Bloomington)

To see the top 15 drawings of each category, please visit our shutterfly site.  The first and second place winners will be used on the packaging of our Rainbow Flower Garden Collection and Super Veggie Garden Collections.  Check back at www.naturescrossroads.com in January to view these items and the rest of our 2011 catalog, including our art packets featuring designs from professional Hoosier artists.

Many of the students who participated in our art contest also participated in our school fundraiser program.  Our Spring 2011 fundraiser theme will be “Pioneer Gardens” and feature information about the traditional herbs, flowers, and vegetables grown by early Hoosier pioneers.  If your school would like to host a fundraiser, please contact our fundraiser coordinator Laura Brown-Cano or call us at 812-327-9612.

Guest post by Nathan Harman of the Bloomington Permaculture Guild.

It’s slowing down. The first frost will be here any day. The garden is about to give out its last tomatoes and beans, the fall crops are plumping up and then it won’t be long ‘til a hard freeze. It’s time to put the garden to bed.

Whether you are happy that you can finally hang it up for the year, or bitter that it flew by so fast, or are relishing the challenge of extending the growing season through winter, there is a big list of fall garden chores to be done.

Putting the garden to bed can be compared to putting children to bed: finish your dinner, put away your toys, go potty, brush your teeth, put on your PJ’s and read a story.

For the garden, finish your dinner means gather, plant and tend the food! Get the most out of the crops you have left. Just before the first frosts come, pick clean all the tender crops like tomatoes, cukes and such. Protect the more hardy crops with cloches, blankets, cold frames, thick mulch, etc. Rush the fall crops along with a dose of organic fertilizer or foliar feeding so they can come out before a real killing freeze. It’s not too late to start or transplant cold-loving crops into favorable positions with protection. Look for the most cold tolerant varieties of kale, Chinese cabbage, mustard, spinach, chard, lettuces, mache and parsley.

Also, plant garlic now, and immediately mulch it for a trouble free and productive crop next year. It will poke up some this fall, then die back and come on strong in the spring. All manner of perennials may be planted or divided and replanted in mid to late fall. Asparagus, rhubarb, horseradish, cane-fruits, berry bushes and fruit trees all love fall planting. Flower bulbs too. This is the time to bring in any tender plants that need overwintered indoors, and to take cuttings. Last but not least here… remember to save seed from your best plants.

Putting toys away is tool maintenance. Locate, clean, oil, sharpen, touch-up, and generally care for all the tools and implements you’ve been using all summer. Clean up and organize the potting shed or tool closet, coil up and drain your hoses before they bust with freezing weather. Stack your pots, and buckets and get everything fresh for next year. Clean, oiled, well-stored tools can last generations, the same tools left out raw all winter last no time at all.

The potty is compost. Collect all the garden waste, plant tops and debris, unseeded weeds, leaves, old mulch, etc. and build up a goodly compost pile, or amend and turn a current one. Many insect pests, fungi and diseases may overwinter on foliage and roots. Removing this habitat can reduce population pressure next year. Get all that organic matter working for you over winter. Take the time to work your compost a bit, because it’s a lot more pleasant now than it will be for some time. There is no substitute for having finished compost ready for you in the spring.

The tooth brushing is the freshen up. Clean up any empty beds of weeds and diseased plant material. Deal with the piles and brush and problem spots that have been bugging you all season. Burn any plant material that carries a known virus or pathogen that is only destroyed by fire. Tidy your pathways, mow, mulch. Make things look nicer to your eye, cause it’s going to look that way all winter.

The PJ’s are mulch and cover crop. Don’t let that poor garden bed shiver naked all through the winter! Keep the ground covered so that it can actually be improving. This is the time of year when the entire deciduous forest is mulching itself and we can easily take advantage of leaves as free and excellent mulch. Mowing or shredding the leaves will help them stay in place better and cause them to decay quicker. They may be black soil by spring. Mulch will moderate soil temperatures and moisture. If you wish to hold on to a crop for a while use mulch to hold whatever heat is already there.  It certainly keeps the soil more friable and full of life.

Cover crops will reduce erosion, and improve the soil texture in addition to providing either a grain yield or good mulch for next year. Winter wheat, and winter rye keep green through the cold; oats will winterkill, but cover the soil as they do. Clover and Hairy Vetch are nitrogen fixing cover crops that overwinter. At this point in the year the only successful cover crop to plant might be rye, though even it won’t be as vigorous as if it were planted weeks ago.

The bedtime story is: what happened in the garden? Did you take careful notes? Any notes? Look them over, compare to past years. Analyze. Write down whatever you still remember! What worked well, what didn’t? Any new plants or techniques to comment on? Any good ideas for next year? Seed, tool, material needs? Write up whatever is useful for you. The act of writing, and telling yourself the story of the garden, seems to give finality to the season. Thinking in terms of planning and of retrospect, rather than the pressing here and now, not only gives a pleasant perspective change, but is fundamental to getting better at this over time.

While you’re gathering information, remember that fall is the best time to gather and test soil samples. The soil is already worked up and warm, dryer than in the spring, the extension office is less busy and best of all, any amendments will have a much longer period to break down and work their magic before planting next year.

Once all that is well in hand, don’t forget to just sit and enjoy your garden for a spell. Remember how it was in different seasons, how it is now, how it could be…

Much of the winter we spend away from the garden, so we must be sure to leave it in the best possible shape as we step out this fall. ‘Cause, like the kiddo, once it’s awake, there’s no stopping. Take a breather. Happy Gardening!

Nathan Harman is an active member of the Bloomington Permaculture Guild and participant in Transition Bloomington.  He and his wife operate Dome-Grown, a small permaculture farm in Bloomington.

Tags: bed, gardening, winter

We are wrapping up our fall school fundraiser season.  This year we offered a variety of fall-planted flower bulbs and our educational theme was “The Art of Botany.”  We brought in tulip bulbs cut in half for students to observe and draw.  The older kids seemed very interested in my tales of Lewis and Clark when naturalists had to rely on their notes and sketches to record information about plants and animals that were totally new to the colonists living east of the Mississippi.  (They seemed a little skeptical when I told them that Thomas Jefferson thought there might be prehistoric wooly mammoths still living in the western United States but it’s true!)

With the younger kids we focused on the life cycle of the bulb, with a modified version of the Bulb Life Cycle game.  The basic idea is that we can represent the bulb’s four life stages with motions:

1. Dormant Bulb (fall) – squat down and wrap arms around knees
2. Rooted Bulb (winter) – stand up and wrap arms around waist
3. Sprouted Bulb (spring) – stand up and stick arms straight up in the air as a shoot
4. Flowering Bulb (summer) – stand up and hold arms in circle over head as a flower

With the youngest students, I tend to just practice the motions and then do a pop quiz of random seasons to see if they can remember what the bulb looks like in summer or spring.  With slightly older kids (third grade and up), we can play a little game.  All students start as dormant bulbs. Each student finds another student at the dormant bulb stage and plays Rock Paper Scissors (“Rock, Paper, Scissors, Shoot!” where the sign is made on “Shoot”). The winner moves on to become a rooted bulb. The loser stays a dormant bulb. This continues through the cycle – each player finds another player at the same stage, plays Rock Paper Scissors, the winner moves up the cycle, and the loser moves down the cycle (but never lower than Dormant Bulb). So the best Rock Paper Scissors player will move directly from Dormant to Rooted to Sprouted to Flowering but
most players will go backwards a couple times.

We didn’t play the game with the older students because we wanted them to try their hand at sketching.  Some of the older kids found the idea of drawing an accurate picture of a bulb rather daunting, and I must confess I struggling with my own drawing skills.  However, like most anything else, our drawing skills tend to improve with practice and drawing is also a great way to improve our observational skills.  In the educator packet, we include a list of activities designed to help improve both drawing and observational skills.  One of my favorites is trying to draw the negative space around a plant or a cluster of leaves or other object.  It changes the way we perceive our subject, even if the drawing part is still a challenge!

I do wish we had worked with more schools this fall but I understand that the timing is challenging (we really need to run the fundraisers in early September so we can get bulbs back to folks for planting, and that’s just a hard schedule to pull off).  Teachers and educators are also struggling with a lot of budget cuts and restructurings, at least here in our neck of the woods.  We hope that we can help by providing a high quality fundraiser offering a wonderful line of Earth-friendly seeds and gardening supplies along with educational support to inspire both students and families.  With a little luck (and encouragement from both teachers and parents) we’ll have more schools participating in our round of spring fundraisers.

For more information about our school fundraisers, please visit our fundraiser site  www.earthfriendlyseeds.com or contact our school fundraiser coordinator Laura Brown-Cano.

Tags: art, botany, fundraiser, gardening, school